Ruined
by Princess Sassafras
Summary: This has got to be the strangest thing I've ever written. Treize's ghost watches the Pilots seven years after the start of the War. [Various implied pairings]


"Ruined"

By: Princess Sassafras

Notes: The title is partially ironic, if that's possible. Read and see. Implied 3x4, 2+4, R+1, 5x? and 3+5. Treize is dead, but he watches the aged ex-pilots in their struggle to lead a normal life.

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If a dead man could speak, he would tell you what I am about to tell you. I am Treize Kushrenada, long since passed.

Twisted, demented men like me create wars. I sought the war to end all wars. But no matter how evil I may seem as reflected by my past efforts, imagine this: far away, scientists working for the colonies were manipulating infants to be their own tools of war.

Even I can feel some modicum of disgust at this. They are children whose affections and aggressions are muddled in their backwards brains…their cares and hates, their sex and their violence. It would have been merciful of me…I would have been proud to take their ruined lives.

We knew what we were up against when we first saw them. Zechs gave Noin's full report to me: a small Chinese youth killed hundreds of soldiers and destroyed a full carrier of Leos. Noin was unable to strike him down, and she later regretted it. I would have had no repercussions. He may have looked like a male child, but he was a demon of war.

The young heir to the Winner estates. We finally found out what _he_ was. I was often haunted after our discovery by the mental image of his pristine countenance behind the bloody metal guise of a Gundam. He was the cause of as much death as the others. I shudder to imagine.

That boy with the famous name: Heero Yuy. How many times did he die and return? They all should be dead, as I am dead. Men like them should not be allowed to live on.

I am a shapeless, watching ghost about their household now. Years I've spent searching for a spark of war, and never once looked into the lives of these past pilots. I assumed they were living in poverty—except for the Winner man—in some remote corners of space, scraping out a bleak existence.

But the blonde pilot has much sympathy it seems, or something else, for he has housed them all here under his large roofs here on earth.

Seven years have passed since the start of it all. They are the age now of most of the young men who were in my starting regiment years ago. Now they look like young fighters. Now, it is too late. They have been men for years.

They sleep, eat, jog, and fornicate. And it would be my greatest pleasure to see them wiped out. They are like insects that survived the nuclear winter.

The gangly one with the long braided hair plays foul jokes on his housemates, even the accommodating Heir. The blonde man laughs brightly. How can they hide their own black souls?

They each study separately at the local university, paid for in Winner gold I first assumed. But now I see that they work…I see them leave with boxes full of metal and briefcases full of files. Preventors. The fools are preventing what? Wars will happen. Men like me will start them in secret.

The Dragon I fought long ago is now tall, dark, and proud. He is courting a Preventor woman, and doing it well. Does she know he is twisted inside?

The one who lost his memory, who bore the stolen name: Barton, sleeps at the foot of Winner's bed like a dog. The braided pilot comes and goes with new lovers every night, but returns at last to his whiskey. Shouldn't he have shot himself by now?

He sings and dances at inappropriate times, and drives his fellow ex-pilots to fits of insanity. Winner smiles an endeared smile at him. The Dragon scoffs.

Yuy, once their leader, has poured himself into his work. He is the only one to show his true colors. Relena Peacecraft comes to see him often, but he shuts her out, shuts his door and works on. This is what he was created for, after all. Either this or death. The foolish woman doesn't know it, just as she didn't when she was a girl. He may kill her still.

What will they do with the rest of their ruined lives? What can they accomplish? When will they learn that they will forever be what they were first created to be: machines that draw blood.

They draw each other's blood now.

The braided man has been foolish. He has kissed the Winner Heir, and the blonde man touches his cheek and shakes his head. More whiskey and more nameless lovers.

The woman is leaving the Dragon, and he weeps for the second time I have ever seen him weep. Barton puts a hand on his shoulder, a sad offer of comfort.

Yuy turns to look out his window at a retreating limousine, and the golden hair of the woman in the passenger window disappears against the horizon. His gun is stuck to the bottom of his desk. He fingers it wistfully.

Ruined. They should have died long ago. They can only destroy themselves, and I will watch as I have been watching. I will watch until they die off, one by one.

Why won't they die?

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I'm sure if my roommate had watched me writing this one, she would have looked over my shoulder, pointed and cried out, "'FORNICATE'! WHY DO YOU HAVE TO USE THE WORD 'FORNICATE'?" I like the word fornicate. Fornication. Fornography. No…um, is that a real word? Not really. Oh well!

Please review,

Princess S.


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